The fault, dear Brutus

[altariel]

I'm writing a story for a LoTR round robin, in which a character is being taught about the constellations and the stars by another character, his grandfather. I've picked Sirius.

Now, I know nothing about the stars, so I've been learning all this as I go along. If I'm making some mistakes, I'd be really grateful if someone could point them out.

By use of this very clever website, I've got the latitude of the place where the story is set, and the time at which the sun rises and sets on a particular day in the month when the round robin participants have decided this story is taking place.

Then I was sent to a very clever piece of software which tells me what time Sirius would appear above the horizon at that latitude on that same day.

I want to set the story in the early evening.

My problem is that Sirius seems to set round about 6pm, while the sun sets around 7.30pm.

My questions is would Sirius actually be visible at all? And am even asking the right kinds of questions here?

Various people have said to me: 'I think you can have some creative licence here...' or 'Fudge it.' But I think this kind of attention to detail matters in a Tolkien story.

Comments

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

(backs up VERY slowly, while keeping a wary eye on the Nuzgul...) No. Oh, no. I don't do myth-making. Angst, yes. Crazy Feanorians, yes. Fairy-tale adaptations and mutated 20th century history fics, yes. But not myth-making. THIS Nuzgul, Altariel, is all yours.

Re:

[altariel.livejournal.com]

No way! I'm already intending to rewrite the Akallabeth - that'll be enough for one lifetime!

Hm, wonder who can we set this nibbler on...?

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Toss it out on HA, or throw it in the Hutch at HASA. Just keep it away from me, please! Maedhros won't forgive me if I start working on anything but his (now long-interrupted) Alqualonde story at this point.